The Revolution in Russia and the Tasks of the Workers of All Countries

Written:Written on March 12 (25), 1917Published:First published in 1924 inLenin Miscellany II.

      Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1964,

      Moscow,Volume 23,

      pages350-354.Translated:M. S. Levin, The Late Joe Fineberg and and OthersTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      2002

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Comradeworkers,

Theprediction of the socialists who have remained faithful to
socialism and have not succumbed to the savage and beastly war hysteria has
proved correct. The first revolution, caused by the world-wide predatory
war among the capitalists of various countries, has broken out. The
imperialist war, that is, a war for the capitalist division of spoils, for
the strangling of weak nations, hasbegunto turn into civil war,
that is, a war of the workers against the capitalists, of the toilers and
the oppressed against their oppressors, against tsars and kings, landowners
and capitalists, a war for mankind’s complete liberation from wars, from
poverty of the masses, from oppression of man by man!

Tothe Russian workers has fallen the honour and the good fortune of
being thefirstto start the revolution—the great and only
legitimate and just war, the war of the oppressed against the oppressors.

TheSt. Petersburg workers have vanquished the tsarist monarchy. Having
started the uprising unarmed in face of machine-guns, in their heroic
struggle against the police and the tsar’s armies, the workers won over the
majority of the soldiers of the St. Petersburg garrison. The same thing
occurred in Moscow and in other cities. Abandoned by his armies, the tsar
had to capitulate: he signed an abdication on behalf of himself and his
son. He suggested that the throne be transferred to his brother Mikhail.

Owingto the great rapidity of the revolution, the direct assistance of
the Anglo-French capitalists, insufficient class-consciousness of themassof the workers and the peoplein St. Petersburg, the organisation and preparedness of the Russian
landowners and capitalists,theysucceeded in seizing power. The
key posts, the premiership and the Ministries of the Interior and War, in
the new Russian government, the “Provisional Government”, have gone to
Lvov and Guchkov, the Octobrists who had done their best to help Nicholas
the Bloody and Stolypin the Hangman crush the Revolution of 1905, shoot
down and hang workers and peasants fighting for land and freedom. The less
important ministerial posts have gone to the Cadets: Foreign Affairs to
Milyukov, Education to Manuilov, Agriculture to Shingaryov. One quite
insignificant post, that of Minister of Justice, has gone to the
glib-tongued Trudovik Kerensky, whom the capitalists need-to pacify the
people with empty promises, fool them with high-sounding phrases, reconcile
them to the government of landlords and capitalists who, in union with the
capitalists of England and France, want to continue the predatory war, a
war for the seizure of Armenia, Constantinople, Galicia, a war to enable
the Anglo-French capitalists toretainthe booty they have taken
from the German capitalists (all Germany’s African colonies), and, at the
same time,recoverthe spoils seized by the German capitalist
robbers (part of France, Belgium, Serbia, Rumania, etc.).

Theworkers could not, of course, trust such a government. They had
overthrown the tsarist monarchy in their fight forpeace, breadandfreedom. They immediately saw why Guchkov, Milyukov and
Co. succeeded in wresting victory from the hands of the working people. The
reason was that the Russian landlords and capitalists were well prepared
and organised; that they had on their side the power of capital, thewealthboth of the Russian capitalists and of the richest
capitalists in the world, the English and the French. The workers realised
from the very start that in order to fight for peace, bread, and freedom,
the labouring classes, the workers, soldiers and peasants, mustorganise, close their ranks, uniteindependentlyof the
capitalists andagainstthe capitalists.

Thusthe St. Petersburg workers, having overthrown the tsarist
monarchy, immediately set up theirownorganisation, theSoviet of Workers’ Deputies, immediately proceededto strengthen and extend it, to organiseindependentSoviets of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Only a few days after the revolution, the
St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers and Soldiers’ Deputies comprisedover
1,500deputies of workers and peasants dressed in soldier’s
uniform. It enjoyed such wide confidence among the railway workers and the
entire mass of the labouring population that it began to develop into a
realpeoples government.

Andeven the most faithful friends and patrons of Guchkov-Milyukov,
even the most faithful watchdogs of Anglo-French predatory capital, the
staff correspondent of the richest newspaper of the English capitalists,
Robert Wilson ofThe Times, and the staff correspondent of the
richest paper of the French capitalists, Charles Rivet ofLe
Temps, even they, while hurling curses at the Soviet of Workers’
Deputies, have been obliged to admit thatthere are two governments in
Russia. One—recognised by “everybody” (actually, by everybody
among thewealthy), the landlord and capitalist government of the
Guchkovs and the Milyukovs. The other—recognised by “nobody” (of the
wealthy classes), the government of the workers and the peasants—the
St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies that is trying to
establish Soviets of Workers’ and Soviets of Peasants’ Deputiesthroughout Russia.

Letus see, now, what each of these two governments is saying and
doing.

1.Whatis the landlord and capitalist governmentofLvov-Guchkov-Milyukov doing?

Itis handing out the most glowing promises right and left. It promises
the Russian people the fullest freedom. It promises to convoke a national
Constituent Assembly to determine Russia’s form of government. Kerensky and
the Cadet leaders declare themselves in favour of a democratic
republic. The Guchkovs-Milyukovs are unsurpassed masters of theatrical
revolutionism. Their publicity machine is working at top speed. But what
about theirdeeds?

Whilepromising freedom, the new government actually negotiated with
the tsar’s family, with the dynasty, with a view to restoring the
monarchy. It invited Mikhail Romanov to become regent, that is, temporary
tsar. The monarchy in Russia would have been restored, bad not the Guchkovsand the Milyukovs been stopped by the workers, who marched through the
streets of St. Petersburg and inscribed on their banners: “Land and
Freedom! Death to the Tyrants!”—who, together with the cavalry
regiments, assembled on the square in front of the Duma and unfurled
banners with the inscription: “Long Live Socialist Republics in All
Countries!” Mikhail Romanov, the ally of the Guchkovs-Milyukovs, realised
that in this situation it would be wiser to decline the offer, pending his
election to the throne by the constituent assembly, and Russia
has—temporarily—remained a republic.

Thegovernment did not deprive the former tsar of his freedom. The
workers compelled his arrest. The government wanted to hand over the
command of the army to Nikolai Nikolayevich Romanov. The workers forced his
removal. Obviously, were there no Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies, the landlords, the Lvovs-Guchkovs, would come to terms with a
Romanov or with some other landowner.

Inits manifesto to the people and in Milyukov’s telegram to all
Russian representatives abroad, the government declared that itwould
abide by allthe international treaties entered into by Russia. These
treaties had been concluded by the deposed tsar. The government does not
dare to publish them—first, because it is bound hand and foot by Russian,
English and French capital; second, because it fears that the people would
tear the Guchkovs and the Milyukovs to pieces if they discovered that the
capitalists were ready to sacrifice another five or ten million workers and
peasants in order to win Constantinople, strangle Galicia, etc.

What,then, is the value of these promises of freedom, if the people
are not allowed to know the truth about the treaties of the landowner tsar,
for which the capitalists are prepared to shed more and more soldiers’
blood?

Andwhat is the value of the promises of various freedoms, and even of
a democratic republic, to a people threatened with famine, a people whom
they wish to lead blind fold to the slaughter in order that the Russian,
English, and French capitalists may rob the German capitalists?

Atthe same time the government of the Guchkovs and Milyukovs is
suppressing by sheer force every attempt of the Russian workers to come to
an understanding with theirbrothers, the workers of other countries: the government doesnot
permit Pravda, which resumed publication in St. Petersburg after the
revolution, the manifesto issued in St. Petersburg by the Central Committee
of our Party, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, or the
proclamations of Duma Deputy Chkheidze and his group, to be sent abroad.

Workersand peasants! You can rest assured: you have been promised
freedom—freedom for the dead, freedom for those who have died of hunger,
who have been slaughtered in the war!

Innone of its programmes has the new government said asingle
wordabout land for the peasants or higher wages for the workers. No
date has as yet been set for convocation of the constituent assembly. No
elections to the St. Petersburg City Council have as yet been
appointed. The people’s militia is being placed under the supervision of
rural and urban local government bodies which, in accordance with the
Stolypin law, were elected only by capitalists and the richest
landowners. Governors are being appointed from the landowning class—and
this is “freedom”!

2.Whatis the government of the workers and peasants doing, and
what should it
			     do?...[1]

[1]Themanuscript breaks off here.—Ed.